Town Council

Welcome from the Mayor
(Cllr. Shirley Jones-Roberts)
I would like to welcome all viewers to the Abergele Town Council web site. This, I hope, will be a valuable source of information about Abergele Town Council and our community in general. More

Are you a local Abergele business included in the AbergelePensarn website?

Are you a local Abergele business included in the AbergelePensarn website? If so, we would like to hear from you if your business details have changed at all, or you have any information or news you would like to share, we are able to help promote your offer.
Your opening times may have currently changed, you may have promotions or competitions or may be offering delivery food service or providing meals to the community.

Hello, please find below information, advice and updates from the Health Board about our staffing, services and the latest situation with COVID-19.

COVID-19 is an unprecedented challenge for the whole NHS system. There is a lot of information circulating in the media and on social media about COVID-19 and the NHS response. Please refer to these briefings and the information available on the BCUHB website, the Public Health Wales website and Welsh Government website for the latest official information.

Although the information in this brief is correct at the time of issue, the fast-changing pace of events means that changes to advice and information can happen quickly. Therefore, the websites above - which are updated and checked regularly - are the most reliable way to access up-to-date information.
Latest..........read more

Thanks to the response of Innogy Renewables, the organisation behind the Gwynt-y-Mor and Clocaenog Forest Community Funds an immediate response fund has been set up.

Grants are now available in the areas of benefit of £100-£5000 to help volunteering at this difficult time and also provide financial help to promote projects that can provide a lifeline to communities, in particular vulnerable people and the elderly who may have difficulty coping with isolation and maintaining their day-to-day lives.

Visiting across all hospital sites has now been suspended to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Please see the below message which will be shared with the general public via social media and the Health Board website this morning.

From today (Thursday 26th March) visiting patients who are not infected with COVID-19 will only be permitted in the following circumstances:

• One parent or guardian for paediatric (Children’s Ward) inpatients and neonatal wards
• One visitor at a time for an agreed amount of time to patients receiving end of life care. Permission from the ward sister or charge nurse must be obtained in advance
• One birthing partner from the same household to support a woman in labour will be permitted

Other exceptions may be provided in special circumstances at the discretion of ward sister/charge nurses or managers, based on advice from our Infection Prevention Control Team.

No visitors or birthing partners should attend hospital if they are unwell or displaying the symptoms of COVID-19, which are a new, continuous cough and high temperature.

No visitors who are pregnant, under the age of 12 years, or is deemed to fall into a high risk category will be permitted.

All visitors must adhere to the social distancing guidelines as far as possible and must adhere to strict hand hygiene and infection control precautions on arriving and leaving. Visitors must not visit any other patients or hospital facilities en route.

The Health Board is also encouraging family and friends of patients under our care to consider alternative ways of keeping in touch, including the use of our hospitals’ free WiFi to use FaceTime or video calling.

Executive Director of Nursing and Midwifery, Gill Harris said: “We understand the importance of patients staying in contact with their loved ones. But the safety of our patients and staff is paramount, and it is crucial that we take all reasonable steps to minimise the risk of infection in our hospitals.

“If you can’t be there in person, we do offer free WiFi throughout our hospitals. So for those with access to smartphones or tablets, we would encourage virtual visiting as a great way to keep in touch, where appropriate.”

Please see below for information in regards to scams and elderly/vulnerable people.

BEWARE OF COVID-19 SCAMS

Unscrupulous criminals are exploiting fears about COVID-19 to prey on members of the public, particularly older and vulnerable people who are isolated from family and friends. National Trading Standards is warning people to remain vigilant following a rise in coronavirus-related scams that seek to benefit from the public’s concern and uncertainty over COVID-19.
Members of the public should ignore scam products such as supplements and anti-virus kits that falsely claim to cure or prevent COVID-19. In some cases individuals may be pressurised on their own doorsteps to buy anti-virus kits or persuaded into purchasing products that are advertised on their social media feeds. In addition, some call centres that previously targeted UK consumers with dubious health products are now offering supplements that supposedly prevent COVID-19.
Communities are also being urged to look out for signs of neighbours being targeted by doorstep criminals. While there are genuine groups of volunteers providing help during self-isolation, there have been reports of criminals preying on residents – often older people or people living with long-term health conditions – by cold-calling at their homes and offering to go to the shops for them. The criminals often claim to represent charities to help them appear legitimate before taking the victim’s money. There are genuine charities providing support, so consumers should be vigilant and ask for ID from anyone claiming to represent a charity.

COVID-19 scams identified include:

Doorstep crime
• Criminals targeting older people on their doorstep and offering to do their shopping. Thieves take the money and do not return.
• Doorstep cleansing services that offer to clean drives and doorways to kill bacteria and help prevent the spread of the virus.

Online scams
• Email scams that trick people into opening malicious attachments, which put people at risk of identity theft with personal information, passwords, contacts and bank details at risk. Some of these emails have lured people to click on attachments by offering information about people in the local area who are affected by coronavirus.
• Fake online resources – such as false Coronavirus Maps – that deliver malware such as AZORult Trojan, an information stealing program which can infiltrate a variety of sensitive data. A prominent example that has deployed malware is ‘corona-virus-map[dot]com’.

Refund scams
• Companies offering fake holiday refunds for individuals who have been forced to cancel their trips. People seeking refunds should also be wary of fake websites set up to claim holiday refunds.

Counterfeit goods
• Fake sanitisers, face masks and Covid19 swabbing kits sold online and door-to-door. These products can often be dangerous and unsafe. There are reports of some potentially harmful hand sanitiser containing glutaral (or glutaraldehyde), which was banned for human use in 2014.

Telephone scams
• As more people self-isolate at home there is an increasing risk that telephone scams will also rise, including criminals claiming to be your bank, mortgage lender or utility company.

Donation scams
• There have been reports of thieves extorting money from consumers by claiming they are collecting donations for a COVID-19 ‘vaccine’.

People are being encouraged to protect their neighbours by joining Friends Against Scams, which provides free online training to empower people to take a stand against scams. To complete the online modules, visit www.friendsagainstscams.org.uk.

NTS is also issuing urgent advice to help prevent people falling victim to COVID-19 scams through its Friends Against Scams initiative.

Coronavirus Covid-19
To help us protect as many people in our community as possible, we’d urge the public to contact us by phone or online............read more

Message from the Mayor

During these difficult times, I would like to thank all the staff at Gwrych Medical Centre, the town's pharmacies, supermarkets, individual shops and local tradespeople along with all the staff at both our local hospitals who are all pulling together to make our residents safe. It's not an easy task to try to keep everyone happy and please be mindful they are all trying to help us under very difficult circumstances.

It has been made apparent over the last few days how many people are volunteering and making every effort to help others, some thoughtful acts of kindness by many wonderful people, the local shops are being exceptionally kind, you know who you are and everyone appreciates what you are doing.

Abergele has always had a wonderful community spirit, although many of our residents are now having to self-isolate, the whole community seems to be rallying around to keep in touch with each other and neighbours.

If we all keep positive, our town can come out of this even stronger and better than it always has been.

Please all keep safe and by trying to help others, please do not put yourself and your families at any risk.

Abergele Town Council are supporting the Conwy wide initiative for residents who need support at this time and would suggest that you phone the number (01492 575544) on the poster if you require assistance.

The Town Council will be coordinating the volunteer response for residents who do not have a support network in place. If you have some spare time please contact 01745 833242 or email info@abergele-towncouncil.co.uk or leave a message on our social media. It would be appreciated if this message could be shared as widely as possible.

Dear All,

• Recycling and Waste collections are operating as usual. However, our partners Crest will not be collecting pink or purple recycling bags at the moment.
• Our Household Recycling Centres will be closed from today until further notice, in line with Government guidance.
• Our Saturday mobile recycling centres will not be running until further notice.
• We are not providing community skips at the moment, in line with Government guidance on social distancing.
• We are not able to take any new bookings for bulky waste at the moment.

To keep our refuse and recycling collections going, we need your help in protecting our staff.

If your household is self-isolating because someone has viral symptoms, please do not put your recycling out for collection for 14 days.

After 14 days, if no one has symptoms, you can put out your recycling and we will take any extra that doesn’t fit in your trolibocs.

Don’t forget to wash your hands before you put out your bin and recycling containers, and again as soon as you bring them back in.

Abergele Town Council are supporting the Conwy wide initiative for residents who need support at this time and would suggest that you phone the number (01492 575544) on the poster if you require assistance.
The Town Council will be coordinating the volunteer response for residents who do not have a support network in place. If you have some spare time please contact 01745 833242 or email info@abergele-towncouncil.co.uk or leave a message on our social media. It would be appreciated if this message could be shared as widely as possible.

The office is currently not open to visitors but the staff are still working and taking calls between the normal hours of 9am to 3pm Monday to Friday. There is an answering machine to take a message out of these hours and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

This is an evolving time for us all and the situation is always changing. The Town Council will keep you updated on what they are doing as much as possible.

Take care and stay safe

Coronavirus Notice

For the Health & Safety of staff the Town Hall is now closed to visitors. We are, at present working as normal, if you need assistance please telephone 01745 833242 or email info@abergele-towncouncil.co.uk

Due to the current Coronavirus Pandemic, for patient safety from Monday the 16th March we are having to change the way we offer patient care. IF YOU HAVE A TEMPERATURE, COUGH OR FLU-LIKE SYMPTOMS DO NOT ATTEND THE SURGERY, EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT BEEN ABROAD OR HAD CONTACT WITH SOMEONE WITH CORONAVIRUS. We are now ONLY dealing with urgent problems, and the overall aim is to reduce face to face contact to the absolutely essential minimum. If you feel that you need advice from a Doctor please telephone the surgery – DO NOT simply turn up at the Medical Centre, as you will be asked to leave and telephone. Your care will be reviewed by a Doctor and dealt with appropriately. These arrangements are likely to apply for the next few weeks, until we are notified that we can return to normal working arrangements. Please pass this on to anyone you know in the area who is not in this group.